As far as music biopics go, you have over-cliched ones like the Hank Williams biopic “I Saw the Light” and the Tupac biopic from last year “All Eyez on Me”.

I honestly didn’t mind them. Not just because they rely on history, but both filmmakers did their best to tribute the emotion the legendary performers brought to the stage. The problem is that the plot formulas are still overdone to death and many did it SO much better.

Then you have unforgettable masterpieces like James Mangold’s “Walk the Line”, F. Gary Gray’s “Straight Outta Compton”, and Bill Pohlad’s “Love & Mercy”, which define more of the realism the character is going through rather than the history behind it.

Thankfully, Bryan Singer’s electric “Bohemian Rhapsody” did not suffer from that particular flaw. It instead builds so much powerful emotion as a character piece celebrating the history of Freddie Mercury’s life from developing a friendship with the band members to revealing that he is gay to the public.

Mercury (Rami Malek) in his personal life lives in a Muslim-type family, where he was born in a Muslim-type country called Zanzibar (also an amazing Billy Joel song). In 1970, guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor are in a band called “Smile”. After a performance at a bar, the lead vocalist Tim Staffell aggressively quits from that band and leaves May and Taylor no hope until Freddie came. That was the time when Freddie changed his last name from Bulsara (his Muslim-born last name) to Mercury making one of the greatest front men in music history. The house was rocking for sure when they released their first US top 40 hits including “Killer Queen” and “You’re My Best Friend”. As anyone would guess, the rest would be all history when Queen not only was a successful band worldwide, but the Live Aid concert in 1985 became a huge smash on television and considered to be the greatest live concert of all time by many music enthusiasts like me.

This is not just a well-made biopic, but a very realistic look on friendship giving a completely raw perspective on Freddie Mercury himself.

Sure you can expect flaws from a typical biopic like this. The usual ones would be the structure where the band start out very, very small, then comes out like a monarch butterfly very, very huge and successful. Another one would be the main character has a love interest throughout the film except unlike most biopics where she acts completely bland, she actually is good here accompanying strong sympathy for the character of Freddie Mercury.

Let’s get this one out of the way. The biggest and probably the most personally funniest problem I have with this film are without question the historical inaccuracies. I am not talking about Mercury discussing about AIDS before Live Aid. I am of course talking about the song placements in the film.

For example, when Freddie says, “We need a song to both stomp and clap our hands to for the audience.” to the band members and crew when creating “We Will Rock You” in 1977, it is literally right after John Deacon came up with the idea of a disco song that would be “Another One Bites the Dust” back in 1980!

It gets worse for me even from here.

After making a big hit with “Killer Queen” in 1974, the scene where Queen tour literally plays a live version “Fat Bottomed Girls”, which was released four years ago back in 1978! I didn’t even feel I was in 1978 yet when that scene boomed with sound in my theater.

Pretty weak if you ask me.

With that being said, this movie builds an emotional, yet effective performance by Rami Malek (Papillon (2018), Short Term 12) as Freddie Mercury. He embodies his appearance by the way he looks, sings, and develops as a character where you don’t see him as Malek. You see him as Freddie Mercury.

Another overlooked performance who doesn’t have much screen time would be Mike Myers as the EMI Records manager that tried his hardest to avoid playing “Bohemian Rhapsody” on radio. He is one of these actors that play a very bossy character, but a bossy character that is funny and hateful at the same time. There is a very hilarious scene where he says some of the lines like “Galileo” and “Scaramouche” and he responds like, “What in the heck is this?”.

There are also some very emotional scenes that are very much earned like when Freddie Mercury reveals that he is going solo to the band members, when there is a different direction for Queen’s style of music, and even when Freddie Mercury during a press conference for Queen’s 1982 album “Hot Space”, he gets bombarded by questions of his personal life and sexuality.

However, the greatest, exciting and most earned sequence throughout the movie is without question the Live AID concert. When the camerawork soars through the crowds in the concert, it makes it out to be a real, important event where the audience feels like they are here. It is definitely the most eventful aspect of the film and arguably the best.

Now would I say this would be the best music biopic since “Straight Outta Compton”? Not quite because of the historical inaccuracies. Well, does it deliver a very electrifying soundtrack, an emotional performance by Rami Malek, and some amazing set-pieces to accompany with it despite a formulaic plot? Yes indeed. Please go watch “Bohemian Rhapsody” for the inner, personal Queen soul and sympathize for the legendary Freddie Mercury.

Grade: 8/10